Aquilaria Agallochum.
same species. The former is described as a magnificent tree, growing to the height of 120 feet, being 12 feet in girth. " The bark of the trunk is smooth and ash-col- ored, that of the branches gray and lightly striped with brown. The wood is white, and very light and soft. It is totally without smell, and the leaves, bark, and flOwers are equally inodorous" {Sc)-ipt. IJcrh. p. 238), The fra-
LIGN-ALOE
429
LIGUORI
grance appears to reside wholly iia the resin deposited ill the pores, and is developed by heat. Both plants belong to the Linnrean class and order Decandria mono- gynia, and the natural family of A qiii/driiicce.
" It is extremely interesting to fnid that the Malay name of the substance in question, which is agila, is so little different from the ahalim of the Hebrew ; not more, indeed, than may be observed in many well-known words, where the hard g of one language is turned into the aspirate in another. It is therefore probable that it was by the name ar/ila (arjliil in Kosenmliller, Bihlic. Bot. p. 234) that this wood was first known in com- merce, being conveyed across the bay of Bengal to the island of Ceylon or the peninsula of India, which the Arab or Phoenician traders visited at very remote pe- riods, and where they obtained the early-known spices and precious stones of India. It is not a little curious that captain Hamilton (Account of the. East Indies, i, G8) mentions it by the name of agala, an odoriferous wood at Muscat. We know that the Portuguese, when they reached the eastern coast from the peninsula, obtained it uniler this name, whence they caUed it pao d\iguila, or ear/le-tcood, which is the origin of the generic name Aquiluria.
" It must be confessed, however, that, notwithstand- ing all that has been written to prove the identity of the aha/im-trees with the aloes -wood of commerce, and notwithstanding the apparent connection of the Hebrew word with the Arabic etgldugun and the Greek agallochon, the opinion is not clear of difficulties. In the lirst place, the passage in Numb, xxiv, 6, ' as the ahalim which Jehovah hath planted,' is an argument against the identification with the Aquilaria agallo- chum. The Sept. seem to have read D'^PilN, olialim', tents ; and they are followed by the Vulg., the Syriac, the Arabic, and some other versions. If this is not the true reading — and the context is against it — then if ahalim be the Aq. agallochum, we must suppose that Balaam is speaking of trees concerning which, in their growing state, he could have known nothing at all. Eosenmlil- ler (Schol. in V. T. ad Numb, xxiv, G) allows that this tree is not found in Arabia, but thinks that Balaam might have become acquainted with it from the mer- chants. Perhaps the prophet might have seen the wood. But the passage in Numbers manifestly implies that he had seen the ahalim growing, and that in all probability they were some kind of trees sufficiently known to the Israelites to enable them to understand the allusion in its full force. But if the ahalim be the agalli)<:hi(m, then much of the illustration would have been lost to the people who were the suljject of the prophecy ; for the A q. agallochum is found neither on the banks of the Euphrates, where Balaam lived, nor in Moab, where the blessing was enunciated. Michaelis (Supp. p. 3-t, 35) believes the Sept. reading to be the correct one, though he sees no difficulty, but rather a beauty, in supposing that Balaam was drawing a simil- itude from a tree of foreign growth. lie confesses that the parallelism of the verse is more in favor of the tree than the tent ; but he objects that the lign-aloes should be mentioned before the cedars, the parallelism requir- ing, he thinks, the inverse order. But this is hardly a valid objection, for what tree was held in greater esti- mation than the cedar? And even if ahalim be the A q. agcdlochuni, yet the latter clause of the verse does no violence to the law of parallelism, for of the two trees the cedar 'is greater and more august.' Again, the passage in Psa. xlv, 8 would perhaps be more correctly translated thus: 'The myrrh, aloes, and cassia, per- fuming all thy garments, brought from the ivory palaces of the Minni, shall make thee glad.' The Minni, or Minrei, were inhabitants of sjiicy Arabia, and carried on a great trade in the exportation of spices and perfumes (Pliny, xii, 14, 16 ; Bochart, Bhaleg, ii, 22, 135). As the mgrrh and cassia are mentioned as coming from the Minni, and were doubtless natural productions of the country, the inference is that aloes, being named with
them, were also a production of the same region" (Kit- to). But see jMinni.
See generally Abulfeda, in Biisching's Magazin, iv, 277 ; Bokin, in Notices et Extraits de la Bihlioth. du Roi, ii, 397; Linnajus, Pflanzensystem nach Ilouttyn (Noimb. 1777), ii, 422 sq. ; Michaelis, Supplem. p. 32; Wahl, Os- tindien, ii, 772 ; the Eundgruhen des Orients, v, 372 ; Bon- di, Or-Esther, p. 13 ; Sylv. de Saez, ad Abdollatiphi De- scrip. yEg. p. 320. Compare Aloe.